Sea Sunday

A Celebration of the Sea

Opening prayer:

Father of all, you made the water that connects every continent and island, sustaining life in all its teeming variety; the common thread through all the living world.  We come before you now to celebrate the sea you created and to praise you for all you have given us through it.

Creator God, for all that You are, and for ever will be, we praise Your Holy Name. Amen

1. Beauty of God and the Sea

Reading: Genesis 1: 1-10, 20-21

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

And God said, ‘Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.’ So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

And God said, ‘Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.’ And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.

And God said, ‘Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of

the sky.’ So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good.

Prayer:

Almighty God, our Creator; all things, from the greatest to the smallest owe their origin to You.  As we look at the sea in all its moods, and think of the life that it contains we are reminded of how wonderful is your creation.  We consider the mighty waves, and remember Your power; we think of the countless creatures who make their homes in or on or beneath the waves, and wonder at Your generosity.  We think of rock pools, filled with life, and marvel at Your attention to detail. We think of the ocean depths, and realise that there is no end to Your knowledge and understanding.

Yet even the sea, in all its variety and richness gives us a just a glimpse of how marvelous You are.

Gracious God, for all that You are, and for ever will be, we praise Your Holy Name. Amen

Poem: By the sea

Christina Rosetti

Why does the sea lament eternally?

Expelled from heaven, makes your cry

breaks against the edge of the coast;

Not all the rivers on earth can fill it;

The sea still drinks, insatiable.

Pure miracles of grace

They lie hidden in their bed never seen:

anemones, salt, dispassionate

flowered petals; alive enough

to blow and multiply and prosper.

Picturesque shells, curves, points or spirals,

with living inlays like the eyes of Argos,

all equally beautiful, but all unmatched,

They are born without anguish, they die without pain,

and so they pass.

Hymn:

Thou, whose almighty word

Chaos and darkness heard,

And took their flight;

Hear us, we humbly pray,

And where the gospel day

Sheds not its glorious ray,

Let there be light.

Spirit of truth and love,

Life-giving, holy Dove,

Speed forth thy flight;

Move on the water’s face,

Bearing the lamp of grace,

And in earth's darkest place

Let there be light.

Holy and blessèd Three,

Glorious Trinity,

Wisdom, Love, Might;

Boundless as ocean's tide,

Rolling in fullest pride,

Through the world far and wide,

Let there be light.

Versicle: Here beside the sea, we worship our creator

Response: Whose love is deeper than the ocean.

2. The Power of God and the Sea

Reading: Acts 27: 27-34; 39-44 (St Paul’s shipwreck)

When the fourteenth night had come, as we were drifting across the sea of Adria, about midnight the sailors suspected that they were nearing land. So they took soundings and found twenty fathoms; a little farther on they took soundings again and found fifteen fathoms. Fearing that we might run on the rocks, they let down four anchors from the stern and prayed for day to come. But when the sailors tried to escape from the ship and had lowered the boat into the sea, on the pretext of putting out anchors from the bow, Paul said to the centurion and the soldiers, ‘Unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved.’ Then the soldiers cut away the ropes of the boat and set it adrift.

Just before daybreak, Paul urged all of them to take some food, saying, ‘Today is the fourteenth day that you have been in suspense and remaining without food, having eaten nothing. Therefore I urge you to take some food, for it will help you survive; for none of you will lose a hair from your heads.’

In the morning they did not recognize the land, but they noticed a bay with a beach, on which they planned to run the ship ashore, if they could.

But striking a reef, they ran the ship aground; the bow stuck and remained immovable, but the stern was being broken up by the force of the waves. The soldiers' plan was to kill the prisoners, so that none might swim away and escape; but the centurion, wishing to save Paul, kept them from carrying out their plan. He ordered those who could swim to jump overboard first and make for the land, and the rest to follow, some on planks and others on pieces of the ship. And so it was that all were brought safely to land.

Prayer:

Merciful Father, when we see a storm at sea, we are allowed to glimpse a tiny fraction of your majesty.  We wonder at the ocean’s force and, though we may feel terror, we know your mercy is greater in power.  We thank you for the vision of enormity the sea affords us, the lessons the seas teach us, the humility that comes from recognising our own feebleness, as we confront with awe vastness of the time and space you have created.

Almighty God, for all that You are, and for ever will be, we praise Your Holy Name. Amen

Poem: Time

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Unfathomable Sea! whose waves are years,

Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe

Are brackish with the salt of human tears!

Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow

Claspest the limits of mortality,

And sick of prey, yet howling on for more,

Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore;

Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm,

Who shall put forth on thee,

Unfathomable Sea?

Hymn:

Dear Lord and Father of mankind,

Forgive our foolish ways!

Reclothe us in our rightful mind,

In purer lives thy service find,

In deeper rev’rence, praise,

In deeper rev’rence, praise.

In simple trust like theirs who heard,

Beside the Syrian sea,

The gracious calling of the Lord,

Let us, like them, without a word,

Rise up and follow thee,

Rise up and follow thee.

O Sabbath rest by Galilee!

O calm of hills above,

Where Jesus knelt to share with thee

The silence of eternity,

Interpreted by love!

Interpreted by love!

Drop thy still dews of quietness,

Till all our strivings cease;

Take from our souls the strain and stress,

And let our ordered lives confess

The beauty of thy peace,

The beauty of thy peace.

Breathe through the heats of our desire

Thy coolness and thy balm;

Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;

Speak through the earthquake, wind and fire,

O still small voice of calm!

O still small voice of calm!

Versicle: Here beside the sea, we worship our creator

Response: Whose love is deeper than the ocean.

3. People and the Sea

Reading: Psalm 107: 23-32

They that go down to the sea in ships,

That do business in great waters;

These see the works of the LORD,

And his wonders in the deep.

For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind,

Which lifteth up the waves thereof.

They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths:

Their soul is melted because of trouble.

They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man,

And are at their wits' end.

Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble,

And he bringeth them out of their distresses.

He maketh the storm a calm,

So that the waves thereof are still.

Then are they glad because they be quiet;

So he bringeth them unto their desired haven.

Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness,

And for his wonderful works to the children of men!

Let them exalt him also in the congregation of the people,

And praise him in the assembly of the elders.

Prayer:

To the bidding: Lord God, creator of all that is,

We respond: Hear our prayer.

Gracious God, today, on Sea Sunday, we offer our prayers for those whose lives are affected by the sea.

We pray for people whose work takes them to sea; for those in the different branches of the navy; for those who transport goods by ship; for those who catch fish for their living.  Be with them as they work, and keep them safe when the weather is bad and seas are rough. 

We pray for seafarers who find themselves in situations of danger due to the decisions of others.  Be with them and hold them in your peace.

Lord God, creator of all that is,

Hear our prayer.

We pray for those who give help when people get into difficulties at sea:  for the lifeboat service, for air-sea rescue, for coast guards, for lifeguards.  We thank You for their courage, and ask that You will guard and guide them as they serve others in need.

Lord God, creator of all that is,

Hear our prayer.

Lord, the sea is a place full of beauty, but we have damaged it by our by our greed, our selfishness, our carelessness.

We are not always careful about how we treat the sea; poisons are allowed to seep into it, rubbish endangers the plants and creatures that live in it.  Be with those whose special work it is to make the sea clean, and show us how we can share this wonderful resource.

Lord God, creator of all that is,

Hear our prayer.

We offer these our prayers in the name of Jesus who called fishermen to be His friends, who preached from a boat on the Sea of Galilee.

Amen

Poem: A Fisherman’s Prayer.

God grant that I may live to fish until my dying day.

And when it comes to my last cast, I then most humbly pray.

When in the Lord's safe landing net I'm peacefully asleep,

That in His mercy I be judged as good enough to keep.

Hymn:

Eternal Father, strong to save,

Whose arm doth bind the restless wave,

Who bidd’st the mighty ocean deep

Its own appointed limits keep:

O hear us when we cry to thee

For those in peril on the sea.

O Saviour, whose almighty word

The winds and waves submissive heard,

Who walkedst on the foaming deep,

And calm, amid the rage, didst sleep:

O hear us when we cry to thee

For those in peril on the sea.

O sacred Spirit, who didst brood

Upon the waters dark and rude,

And bid their angry tumult cease,

And give, for wild confusion, peace:

O hear us when we cry to thee

For those in peril on the sea.

O Trinity of love and pow'r,

Our brethren shield in danger's hour.

From rock and tempest, fire and foe,

Protect them whereso'er they go,

And ever let there rise to thee

Glad hymns of praise from land and sea.

Versicle: Here beside the sea, we worship our creator

Response: Whose love is deeper than the ocean.

4. Stilling the Storm

Reading: Mark 4: 35-41

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side.’ And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great gale arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?’ And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’

Prayer:

Father Almighty, we thank you that we share the privilege of living next to the sea.  We pray for all those who have never seen an ocean; who do not know its vastness, its beauty, its majesty and power;  We bless you for:

- a sunrise reflected or the moon-silver magic of a mill-pond smooth night;

- the rhythms of the waves and of the tides,

- the ocean’s always-changing face,

- the endless shift of blues and greens and browns and golds that accompany her ever-changing song;

- the lapping, crashing, murmuring waves,

- the seagull cries and the splash of a diving seabird as it penetrates the surface, hunting fish.

- the smell of the cleansing, saline breath the sea exhales.

The sea reflects a tiny portion of your glory.  We bless you for your precious gift to all humanity and praise the wonder of creation. Most generous and merciful God, for all that You are, and for ever will be, we praise Your Holy Name.  Amen.

Poem: There be none of Beauty’s daughters

Lord Byron

There be none of Beauty's daughters

With a magic like Thee;

And like music on the waters

Is thy sweet voice to me:

When, as if its sound were causing

The charm’d ocean's pausing,

The waves lie still and gleaming,

And the lull'd winds seem dreaming:

And the midnight moon is weaving

Her bright chain o'er the deep,

Whose breast is gently heaving

As an infant's asleep:

So the spirit bows before thee

To listen and adore thee;

With a full but soft emotion,

Like the swell of Summer's ocean.

Hymn:

There's a wideness in God's mercy

Like the wideness of the sea;

There's a kindness in his justice

Which is more than liberty.

There is no place where earth's sorrows

Are more felt than up in heaven;

There is no place where earth's failings

Have such kindly judgment given.

For the love of God is broader

Than the measures of our mind,

And the heart of the Eternal

Is most wonderfully kind.

But we make his love too narrow

By false limits of our own;

And we magnify his strictness

With a zeal he would not own.

There is plentiful redemption

Through the blood that has been shed;

There is joy for all the members

In the sorrows of the Head.

There is grace enough for thousands

Of new worlds as great as this;

There is room for fresh creations

In that upper home of bliss.

If our love were but more simple,

We should take him at his word;

And our lives would be all gladness

In the joy of Christ our Lord.

Versicle: Here beside the sea, we worship our creator

Response: Whose love is deeper than the ocean.

Blessing:

Dismissal: